~ Perspective from Vancouver

Twinning Tweets — Transit

Transit Success: The Evergreen Line extension. Lots of people riding; and lots of development along it should mean even more riders coming. And many are taking local trips. With thanks to Gary McKenna in the Tri-City News.

More than 30,000 riders per day are using the Evergreen Extension, making up half of all weekday transit trips in the area, according to numbers released Friday by TransLink.

CEO Kevin Desmond told The Tri-City News that Compass Card data shows a significant number of commuters have been travelling to destinations within Port Moody and Coquitlam since Evergreen opened on Dec. 2. “Twenty per cent of those trips start and stop within the Tri-Cities,” he said, later adding, “That gives you a sense of those activity nodes.”

By comparison, the 97 B-Line bus service that was replaced by Evergreen had 10,000 passengers per weekday, a third of the number used by SkyTrain since it opened on Dec. 2.

Transit Follies: Meanwhile, at the development by Onni Group at the 25-acre George Pearson Lands, it looks like the developers may be shying away from adding a transit stop to the Canada Line (@ Cambie & 57th). This despite open house promo material (below). If so, this mistake would deprive new and existing residents of the area of a healthy alternative way to get around. [Thx Frances Bula].

A neglected opportunity like this would be a big bad mistake, and a source for decades of regret.

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26 thoughts on “Twinning Tweets — Transit”

A good guess is that the entire system will be greatly energized once the Broadway Subway comes on stream. Beyond that would be re-establishing a modern electric Interurban to the Fraser Valley and Pemberton. All with appropriate land use changes.

This is so absurd. The property is (was?) owned by Vancouver Coastal Health. Despite city policy to make new large developments like this both walkable and cycleable, there is almost zero provision for cycling in the plans. And now, no transit stop? How can this be justified?

I agree, that doesn’t make sense for a development ripe for high density.

I wonder how a station at 33rd will ever get built if they let 57th go? I’ll never understand how they decided to omit 16th Ave as well, but then the Canada Line was inadequate from the start because the private sector had control over the design and no doubt went through several cost cutting exercises before it was finalized.

16th Ave wasn’t technically possible because the grades between it and the 2 adjacent stations would have been too steep (even with short 50m platforms).

If a 16th Ave. station were to have been built, the tunnel would have had to have been much deeper, requiring a bored tunnel and King Edward Station would also have been deeper requiring more escalators and more time to access the platforms.

The trade-off was a future 33rd Ave. station along the cut & cover tunnel.
A bored tunnel would probably have been too deep for a 33rd Ave. station (given the rock) or it would have been straight under the west side of QE Park rather than following the road.

The tunnel was set about 2.5 – 3.5m below the road surface, a bit deeper at 16th and where deeper utilities were located. The average surface slope between King Ed and 16th is less than 2%, or 15m over 840m. There are two grade breaks, one downward King Ed-23rd, and 18th-16th (5m drop) It’s pretty level between.

The slope between 16th and 10th (the back of the Broadway station box) is 5%, or 30m in 600m, and 16th-Broadway is less (30m in 700m). With the tunnel paralleling the surface and accounting for level station boxes, all these slopes are manageable by trains. The transitional segments (vertical tunnel to horizontal) actually raised the floors and made the excavation shallower, and the invert elevations less steep.

A 16th Ave station was eliminated to shortchange the price, not because it couldn’t be engineered. It may have had to be set a bit deeper, but not by much. I note the Bombardier bid included twin bored tunnels all the way from waterfront to 62nd with a station at 16th (not sure about 33rd and 57th), SkyTrain technology and longer station boxes, all for $500 million more than the Lavalin bid. With two years of trench warfare, missing and inadequately-sized stations and incompatible train tech, one can wonder of the added expense was penny wise and pound foolish, especially considering the 100-year lifespan of the line.

The good and bad about the Canada Line should inform the Broadway Subway project.

I would imagine that the developer would desperately want a subway station walking distance from their development, so maybe there’s some bargaining going on, ie the developer wants government help (or more help) in paying for the station. With the inevitable redevelopment of the Langara Golf Course, a station will be built at some point.

Redeveloping the Langara Golf Course is not that likely, or at least, not as anything that isn’t mainly a green space. It’s one of the few areas of the city identified in the Regional Plan as protected Recreational and Conservation land.

It could change from a golf course, and it might benefit from having a transit station, but it would be limited to “commercial uses, tourism activities, and public, cultural or community amenities that are appropriately located, scaled and consistent with the intent of the designation”.

New transit does not reduce congestion but allows a greater number of trips with the same congestion (the new transit causes some drivers to switch to transit, but the extra space freed up is occupied by people who did not use the road before because it was too congested). Note building new roads does not reduce congestion either…and of course the extra trips on transit tend to increase quality of life and the extra trips by building new road decreases quality of life.

I was going to comment on the noticeable improvement in traffic on Lougheed since the Evergreen line opened, then decided not to bother, but since you brought it up – yes, there has been a clear difference in congestion since the new line opened. To be honest, I didn’t expect that big of a change, but the difference is obvious to a regular commuter.

As Rico says, over time the improvement will probably dissipate into more trips instead, but the ability of more people to make trips is critical to a city succeeding so it’s not like that is really a bad thing. Plus the transit line provides a backstop on how bad traffic can get – past a certain point of congestion, it is faster to take transit so people switch. That is why, around the world, the places with really horrific traffic are those with no transit to speak of.

freewaydriver – Transit and cycling infrastructure provide people with mobility options. If driving were the only transportation mode available, we would almost certainly be in a gridlock situation most of the time. It is the availability of transit and cycling options that allow driving to be a reasonable option. Surely people who want to or who must drive should be hugely supportive of improved transit and cycling.

I can not believe anyone in Vancouver would be dumb enough not to build a new station in congunction with the redevelopment at 57th. I have to assume the developer is trying to apply some leverage but if the city lets them proceed without the station everone involved in the decision should be fired/kicked out of office.

This area needs the Canada Line Station – not just for this project, but adjacent Langara Gardens (which should also contribute to the cost) and the surrounding Cambie corridor lands.

Don’t let this station go the way of Woodlands Station on the Millennium Line. That station was planned for with the redevelopment of the nearby BC Penitentiary and Woodlands school site, but New Westminster dropped the ball.

As this comment “By comparison, the 97 B-Line bus service that was replaced by Evergreen had 10,000 passengers per weekday, a third of the number used by SkyTrain since it opened on Dec. 2.” shows, rail (and not bus) based transit systems on highly traveled routes (such as Broadway corridor, Lionsgate bridge or Second Narrows) will pick up a lot of car users !!

Cities collect taxes too. Both have excessively paid civil servants thus little money left over for investment. Where is this debate, as 70%+ of taxes collected is on wages & benefits ?

BC Ferries, BC liquor stores, provincial employees & city employees: all overpaid by a WIDE margin. Both are NOT great stewards of money.

Where is Uber ? Why is the province in the liquor sales business ? What are BC Ferries workers or city employees making 50-80% above private sector wages ? Why is street cleaning or garbage pickup in parks not outsourced at 1/3 the cost ?

If all cities in MetroVan adjusted their employees’ wages to market, given benefits and low risks of layoffs, we’d have the annual $700M we need for additional transit in a heart beat.

Maybe private sector wages are too low. Everyone needs a living wage. Most wealth generation due to automation is going to the very rich. Yes – many things are out of whack, but at least some people are getting a decent wage.

The revised proposal for the Pearson lands has been submitted. It’s altered to respond to the non-support from the Urban Design Panel last November. Some buildings get a bit taller, others shorter to avoid shadowing the ‘urban farm’ open space proposed as part of the project. There are some other changes, including more affordable housing units. There’s a space identified as being reserved for the future transit station, so it would appear that is definitely part of the plans for the area.

The Pearson project wouldn’t be expected to be the only source of funding for a station; there’s a proposal to redevelop much of Langara Gardens and some sites on the east side of Cambie as well.